Business of the House

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The work done by the St Cross hospital is fantastic. It is so important that people with very serious illnesses should receive the best possible treatment and should receive it locally. The work he is doing in supporting local charities is first class, and the St Cross hospital has the particular respect of this House.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

First, may I, on behalf of the third party, associate myself with the remarks made by you, Mr Speaker, the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House regarding Mark Hutton? He has been a friend of this party over the years, so much so in fact that our Chief Whip takes rather more pride than might be expected in a Scottish nationalist in having his signed copy of “Erskine May” in his office.

I want to begin by talking about our procedures and paraphrasing Kipling by saying “If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs, you probably don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.” I think that is what is happening in this Chamber, where we are maintaining this façade of normalcy whilst we know that there is a crisis gripping the country. I do wonder if we are devoting enough urgency to looking at how we can revise and improve participation by remote means in our discussions, given that large parts of the country are now again in lockdown and that these measures may intensify in the weeks and months to come. In that regard, I am particularly disappointed to see that next week Westminster Hall will resume its sittings in a business-as-normal- type way. Surely if there was ever an opportunity to try to test creatively the opportunities presented to us by technology and to have virtual conferencing, it would have been in the setting of Westminster Hall. As it is, these debates will take place with the vast majority of Members of Parliament unable to participate in them, and it is a great wasted opportunity.

I also want to talk about the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, which is trundling its way through Parliament. It is now clear—it is no longer a matter of speculation—that the devolved Administrations of the United Kingdom will not give consent to this ridiculous piece of legislation, and I want to know if we can find the time to debate in this Chamber the consequences for the devolution settlement of that being the case and of the United Kingdom Government choosing to ignore the wishes of the devolved Administrations and steamroller the legislation through anyway.

For my final point, on the job support scheme, I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It was welcome that the Chancellor came to the House to discuss this last week, but there are still enormous gaps. When can we find the time to debate what we can do to assist those companies in this country that are viable, safe and good businesses but that are closed, by order, to meet the public health imperative? Are we simply to say that all those businesses and all those jobs are unviable and they are to be discarded, or are we going to step in after 31 October and offer them some assistance?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman has continued to ask for us to change our procedures and to do things more remotely; it is worth noting that yesterday the remote voting system in the other place fell down and therefore it will have to redo the votes on the business it was supposed to be doing. I think we have to press on with our important business in serving the country, ensuring that we have the debates that are asked for. From the point of view of Government business managers, we have the demand, on the one hand, for debates and votes, quite rightly, and on the other, that we should not be here. People cannot have it both ways. The technology did not provide satisfactory scrutiny and has fallen over in voting in the other place. When we had a problem in our Division Lobbies, we had a fall-back solution and we could carry on with the business. Losing a day’s votes on Report stage of a Bill makes proceeding with Government business exceptionally difficult.

As regards Westminster Hall, the hon. Gentleman says that most Members will not be able to attend, but most Members do not attend Westminster Hall anyway; very few debates are full in Westminster Hall, and although there will be formal limits, considering the numbers who are at most Westminster Hall debates, those formal limits will not be unduly stretched. The resources of our broadcasting teams are being used in other ways, and there are limited resources. Again, people wanted Westminster Hall back, and we have got Westminster Hall back, and that presents an opportunity to hold the Government to account; I think this is a good thing and the right thing to be doing.

The United Kingdom Internal Market Bill is a fantastic Bill. It is one of the best pieces of legislation passed by the House in recent times. It also devolves 70 powers to the devolved Administrations. SNP Members are modelling themselves on Oliver Twist—they are always asking for more. They cannot have more on this occasion. They have a great deal of devolution coming through that Bill, and the Bill will ensure that we have a functioning internal market. The hon. Gentleman effectively asked for further debates on the Bill. It is worth noting that two of the days in Committee were not completely used, so Members are on stronger ground complaining when the time provided by Government has been used up.

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for the job support scheme. I remind the House that £190 billion of taxpayers’ money has gone to support the economy so far. That is a very substantial amount. As the Chancellor has said, not everything can be protected, but an enormous amount has been protected.